cis-stilbene is a photochemical prototype for cis-trans olefinic photoisomerisation. In our recent work, we show that this process maintains coherence throughout the reaction path, even in liquid-phase. This has interesting implications for the evolutionary favourability of this reaction in biology.

Designing long and highly conducting molecular wires has been a great challenge for decades. It has now been shown that an oxidized 2.6-nm-long oligophenylene-bridged bis(triarylamine) can show a single-molecule junction conductance over 0.1G0.

We report in situ continuous anthraquinone electrosyntheses from lower-cost anthracene feedstock in a flow cell reactor to lower mass production cost of anthraquinone-based electrolytes, and in situ electro-resyntheses of active molecules from decomposed species to extend lifetime of aqueous anthraquinone redox flow batteries.

The asymmetric hydrogenation of oximes to chiral hydroxylamines is a long-standing problem due to the labile N-O bond and inert C=N bond. It has now been enabled by a chiral nickel catalyst with excellent results in which the weak interactions between catalyst and substrate play crucial roles.

In phytochrome Agp2 ultrafast proton-transfer occurs from the chromophore to a hydrogen-bonded water network in the protein prior to photoisomerization. The altered hydrogen bonds persist after photoisomerization and trigger together with the new chromophore geometry the activated protein conformation.